RED STORM RISING - DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES - THE AFTERMATH
The Tomcats had all been drawn off, leaving the formation practically naked. The only armed fighters over the formation were Foch's eight Crusaders, long since retired from the American inventory. On a terse command from their carrier, they went to afterburner and rocketed southwest toward the Backfires. Too late.
...
Toland fell to his knees and looked outboard. Foch had been to their north, he remembered. Now there was a pillar of smoke. As he watched, the last Kingfish was detonated a hundred feet over Saratoga's flight deck. The carrier seemed undamaged. Three miles away, Ticonderoga's after superstructure was shredded and ablaze from a rocket that had blown up within yards of her. On the horizon a ball of flame announced the destruction of yet another- my God, Toland thought, might that be Saipan? She had two thousand Marines aboard . .
…
Toland took a pair of binoculars and looked around to see what ships were nearby. What he saw chilled him.
Saratoga was the only ship that looked intact, but on second glance her radar mast was askew. Foch was lower in the water than she ought to have been, and ablaze from bow to stem.
"Where's Saipan?"
"Blew up like a freakin' firework," Commander Bice replied. "Holy Jesus, there were twenty-five hundred men aboard! Tico took one close aboard. Foch took three hits, looks like she's gone. Two frigates and a destroyer gone.
…
The eight French Crusaders were just making contact with the Backfires. The Russian bombers were on afterburner and were nearly as fast as the fighters. The carrier pilots had all heard their ship go off the air and were consumed with rage at what had happened, no longer the cool professionals who drove fighters off ships. Only ten Backfires were within their reach. They got six of them with their missiles and damaged two more before they had to break off.
...
The total loss of life was still uncertain, but scarcely two hundred men had escaped from Saipan, and only a thousand from Foch.In terms of casualties this had been the bloodiest defeat in the history of the United States Navy, with thousands of men gone and not a single kill to offset the losses. Only the French had scored against the Backfires, succeeding with twenty year-old Crusaders where the vaunted Tomcats had failed.
...
WWIII started on June 15, 1986 and lasted barely 34 days. It brought absolute devastation in Germany and elsewhere.
On day 3 of the war, June 18, 1986 a carrier battlegroup protecting a Marines Amphibious Unit was devastated by Soviet antiship missiles.
It should be noted that, even if De Gaulle had withdrawn France from NATO command in 1966, the French Navy had made clear that if WWIII ever broke out the Foch and Clemenceau would be send in the Atlantic for convoy duties along with American carriers. There was no question about that, so that fateful day Foch was steaming along USS Saratoga and USS Nimitz, protecting a Marine Amphibious Unit on its way to the battered Iceland. The amphibious ships like USS Saipan were slow and vulnerable; but the air cover provided by the three carriers was formidable, and the task force was reinforced by an AEGIS cruiser, the Ticonderoga.
What happened was that Badger subsonic bombers lured away the Tomcat force, which spent its fabled Phoenix missiles shooting drones maskerading as Badgers. Once the Tomcat fleet away from the battlegroup, the much more redoutable Tu-22M Backfires come out of nowhere and fired no less than 140 supersonic, heavy antiship missiles toward the task force - with devastating results. With the Tomcat away the only air cover left was Foch eight Crusaders that were imediately launched and chased the Backfires; but they were too little and too late. The second line of defence, the lone AEGIS cruiser Ticonderoga, was simply overwhelmed with missiles; other older SAMs had a harder time shoooting low and fast targets.
USS Nimitz was ripped open by two missiles but survived while Saratoga was slightly damaged by a single missile that detonated ahundred of feet above its flight deck, damaging that carrier main mast. Missile cruiser Ticonderoga was severely damaged, its aft structure flattened by a single impact. The worse, however, was to come as more missiles found the amphibious force the carriers were to protect. The USS Saipan amphibious ship carrying 2500 Marines was simply blown away with very little survivors – merely a couple of hundred. Nimitz lost 500 sailors, Foch, 900 of its 1800 crew. Total number of killed was around 4000 or even more, the bloodies defeat in US Navy history, as bad as Pearl Harbor.
Three AS-6 Kingfish found the Foch, went through the MASURCA and Tartar SAMs and hit the French aircraft carrier in rapid succession, fore to aft.
The first Kingfish penetrated the flight deck near the bow and exited from the side of Foch at gallery deck level before exploding in the ocean. The force of the explosion wrecked the hull shape, pushing metal plates inwards.
The second AS-6 Kingfish struck the flight deck centerline, penetrating to the hangar deck, vaporizing the Super Etendards there, igniting fires through the second and third decks, and knocking out the Combat Information Center and air plot. The hangar deck contained 18 combat aircrafts and helicopters. The explosion on the hangar deck ignited the fuel tanks on the aircraft, and gasoline vapor explosion devastated the deck. Only two crewmen survived the fire on the hangar deck. The explosion also jumbled aircraft together on the flight deck above, causing further fires and explosions.
The third Kingfish hit at the stern, tearing through two decks, up to the ship machinery it completely wrecked, destroying the steam plant and catapults.
Initial damage assessment showed the Foch main deck entirely destroyed from bow to stern, the hangar, catapults, aircrafts, helicopters all gone, and so was the machinery. The carrier had been essentially flattened with the exception of the island precariously standing on the edge of a smoldering, blackened crater. As fires raged, the island finally collapsed under its own weight, falling to the side, into the empty hull.
Foch lay dead in the water, lost all radio communications, and broiled under the heat from enveloping fires. On the bridge, amiral Jean-Charles Lefebvre ordered
Foch's magazines flooded but this could not be carried out as the ship's water mains were destroyed by the explosions or fire. All hope of salvaging anything was lost and Lefebvre transferred his flag to the Colbert heavy cruiser. He ordered to abandon ship but refused to scuttle the
Foch immediately as there were still many men alive below deck. Such was the flight deck devastation, there was not a single flat spot left where an helicopter could land. Smoke and fire greatly hampered rescue operations.
Many of the 1800-strong crew were blown overboard, driven off by fire, killed or wounded. When totaling casualty figures number was 924 killed in action. Certainly, the casualty figures would have far exceeded this number, but for the work of many survivors who administered the last rites, organized and directed firefighting and rescue parties, and led men below to wet down magazines that threatened to explode. Another survivor discovered 300 men trapped in a blackened mess compartment and, finding an exit, returned repeatedly to lead groups to safety.
Once the wounded were evacuated and the dead bodies collected the question arose of what to do of the Foch empty hull. Ultimately Lefebvre ordered the Foch to be scuttled. France first nuclear attack submarine, the Rubis, finished Foch with a volley of torpedoes. The devastated aircraft carrier took a marked list and then slided below the waves.
The only postive note was that eight French Crusaders send against the Backfire force killed six bombers and damaged two. Each Crusader was armed with a pair of Matra Magic, short range missiles not unlike american Sidewinders, including mixed reliability. The French pilots took no risks and showed no mercy. They prefered firing two missiles against the same Backfire, ensuring a kill.
Now low on fuel the Crusaders circled over the devastated battlegroup, their pilots teeming with rage. USS Saratoga was the only carrier left and as such it had to recover all the Tomcats, their tankers (Intruders and Corsair IIs) and 8 French Crusaders that had no carrier left to land. The Saratoga deck and hangars were soon pretty crowded; the long range Intruders were ordered to fly to Europe in order to make room for all the aircrafts orphans of Foch and Nimitz. They were followed by A-7 Corsair II which went to Germany to bolster NATO strike force.
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What consequences for the French Aeronavale ?
1 - How was air defence of the Foch organized ?
There was four lines of defence
- Eight Crusader aircrafts
- The MASURCA long range SAM (three ships: Suffren, Duquesne, and Colbert heavy cruiser)
- SM-1 Tartar (two T-47 frigates, two others had been scrapped except for the Tartar that were to be upgraded and fitted to a couple of new frigates, the Cassard-class, in 1988)
- Did Foch had something akin to a CIWS? Not quite. There were four turrets with 100 mm guns dating from 1953...
Even before the battle the French Navy aknowledged that the Clemenceau-class self defences were utterly obsoletes... and as such (the irony!) at the time of June 1986 WWIII the Clemenceau was undergoing an IPER (French own SLEP upgrade) to be overhauled with Crotale short range SAMs. The Foch was to follow as soon as Clemenceau would be available, prbably early in the year 1987 had the war not broke out.
The day Foch was sunk, SAM defence of the French fleet consisted of
- 1*Colbert heavy cruiser, MASURCA
- 1*Suffren frigate, MASURCA
- 2*T-47 escorts - Dupetit-Thouars, Du Chayla with SM-1 Tartar
- Foch eight Crusaders
- Foch 100 mm self defence guns
The MASURCA was an old, heavy and cumbersome system yet it managed to shoot down a handful of AS-6 Kingfish. With the stock of MASURCA depleted T-47 Tartar took over and did a good job, but the lack of a third ship was felt bitterly. Once the Tartar were depleted it was game over for Foch – there was no way its heavy and cumbersome 100 mm guns tracked something as low and fast as an AS-6 Kingfish.
For the record, USS Nimitz was targeted by five missiles but its fast firing automated CIWS 20 mm guns killed two missiles while a third was lurred by a cloud of shaff. The CIWS however was overwhelemed by the last two missiles flying too close from each other and engaged neither.
How did the French Navy reacted to the loss of Foch?
As we saw earlier Clemenceau was near the end of an IPER upgrade that included Crotale close defense missiles. It was to be back in service by October 1986 but that was cancelled and the carrier was pressed into service.
Meanwhile the US Navy decided to symbolically help the belaguered French Aeronavale. The closest thing from a Clemenceau class carrier in the USN inventory was the Essex-class of 24 carriers build during WWII. Unfortunately most of the Essex had been retired and scrapped by 1976. The last two survivors were the Oriskany and Lexington.
Back in 1981 Oriskany had been considered for reactivation for Reagan 600-navy ship but nothing had happened, so the last Essex in service remained the Lexington. It was used as the USN training carrier, teaching future pilot the intricacies of carrier landings.
Because WWIII was limited to the Atlantic, the USN decided to detach one of its Pacific Forrestal-class carrier to the training role, freeing the Lexington from its training shores. The USN offered Lexington to France, with the name (quite inevitably!) changed to La Fayette. The French Navy briefly hesitated then accepted the ship.
Second part of the USN deal was aircrafts, mostly F-8 Crusaders. The USN proposed the Aeronavale ten F-8J to be taken out of storage at Davis Monthan, Arizona and refurbished. They would be armed with four AIM-9L Sidewinder. That air to air missile was redoutable; in the Falkland war it had armed the Sea Harriers, with stunning results.
The French however said no, thanks. The Crusader force was intact, having flown out of Foch before it was hit.
Squadron 12F had a strength of eight aircraft aboard Foch with four more left on the ground, totaling 12. The other Crusader squadron, the 14F had been disbanded in 1979, also with twelve aircrafts, for a total of 24 operational aircrafts in the late 70's... but back in '64 the French had bought, not 24 Crusaders, but 42, so even with the usual atrition, the Aeronavale had well enough Crusaders in reserve.
The real loss was with the Super Etendard fleet, of which fourteen went down with Foch. The USN and Marine Corps proposed the Aeronavale refurbished A-4 Skyhawks, A-7 Corsair II or even a detachment of AV-8 Harriers but the French stuck with the Super Etendard, Dassault and the Aeronavale charging ahead with new aircrafts. Lost Etendard IVP and Alizés were mostly obsolete aircrafts which loss was less damaging. A handful of helicopters had also been lost, but they were more easy to replace.
The thoroughly traumatized French aeronavale, however, requested a different kind of mothballed aircraft. They had been impressed by the E-2 Hawkeye performance, unfortunately those birds were way too big and heavy for either Clemenceau or La Fayette. Hearing that, Grumman made an interesting proposal. Before the E-2 was the E-1, a naval AWACS derived from the good old Tracker. 88 E-1 Tracer had been build and used until 1977 when the far superior E-2 took over. Grumman and the USN proposed to take five Tracer out of mothball and upgrade them to provide the Aeronavale with a much needed early warning system. The war was over before the deal could be done, and once the urgency got away, the Tracer deal took a different shape. The French asked for the piston-engines to be replaced by turboprops, creating the TurboTracer. The French used a total of six E-1C from both Clemenceau and La Fayette.
Which bring us to the crucial issue of replacing the lost Foch.
Loss of the ship happened at a very crucial moment in the history of its successor, once known as the Richelieu and rebranded Charles de Gaulle on May 18, 1986 – only a month before WWIII broke out (Somewhat ironically Foch was blown to smithereens on June 18, a day that lives in France history as the day (in 1940) Charles de Gaulle initiated Free France by a radio call from London).
Construction of the Richelieu had been approved on February 4, 1986 - only days after the initial events that triggered WWIII, that is, the destruction of USR major oil refinery by muslim terrorists, Janaury 26, 1986.
First metal was to be cut in the year 1987 but the loss of Foch dramatically altered those plans. Post-disaster examination of Foch showed that, unlike the much bigger and roomy Nimitz the carrier smaller size meant devastation from top to bottom, destruction reaching deep inside the hull, down to the keel. It happened that Richelieu was to be designed as a much upgraded Clemenceau-class with longer catapults and nuclear propulsion. French Navy designers however faced nightmares of a Richelieu ship ripped open like Foch, except with damaged nuclear reactors spewing radioactivity all over the place. Most importantly, construction of France very first nuclear surface ship would take the major part of the next decade and half. After the loss of Foch it was decided to cut time and costs by fitting the new carrier with conventional propulsion, with the hope that lower costs would allow for funding of a second ship. That decision proved to be wise.
Meanwhile by 1987 the French Fleet was undergoing a massive change in its SAM umbrella. Both MASURCA and Tartar had shown their limits and were to be phased out. Before WWII broke out the T-47 Tartar-armed ships from the 60's were to be replaced by a couple of new frigates - the Cassard-class to enter service by 1988. Yet to save cost, the new frigates were to use Tartar systems salvaged from their predecessors with only minor upgrades ! Needless to say that scheme sunk with the Foch. Instead the French Navy decided to go with the next logical step – the Standard missile.
The RIM-66 Standard missile program was started in 1963 to produce a family of missiles to replace existing guided missiles used by the Terrier, Talos, and Tartar missiles. The intention was to produce a new generation of guided missiles that could be retrofit to existing guided missile ships. Standard used the same fuselage as Tartar for easier use with existing launchers and magazines for that system. Then RIM-66E was the last version of the Standard which entered service in 1983 with the United States Navy and export customers. The RIM-66E was used by all remaining Tartar vessels that were not modified to use the New Threat Upgrade (NTU gave AEGIS-compatibility to old ships, and the French hoped to go NTU or even AEGIS, probably in the 90's).
So the Cassard-class frigates would be build with RIM-66E Standard in place of the RIM-24 Tartar. Five ships would be build, not two, to replace the MASURCA ships. RIM-66E range was enough to replace both SAMs.
Then there was the difficult case of the Crusader replacement. The F/A-18 Hornet was tempting, but it was just too heavy for both Essex and Clemenceau class carriers, which catapults were too short.
Trials from Clemenceau in 1988 showed that even with a pair of Sidewinder and Sparrow (and not a single pound of air-to-ground munition) Hornets had to cut internal fuel to the point they could barely reach a tanker. That, and the Rafale demonstrator (not prototype) flew in the middle of WWIII, on July 4, 1986. Dassault made clear the Aeronavale would be a customer one way or another, sooner or later – probably within the next decade. So there was no room – money ! - left for Hornets.
The solution found was a thorough update of eighteen Crusaders including the all-aspect infrared Matra Magic 2 AAM. Lessons learned from chasing the Backfires included carriage of four Magic 2 (not two!) even if the structure had to be reinforced to carry them. The missiles used to kill the Backfires had been Magic 1, with could only be fired in a stern chase. Magic 2 had no such limit and was an all aspect weapon. The Aeronavale reasonned that although nothing like Tomcats, Crusaders armed with four Magic 2 and vectored by E-1C would be good enough to protect Clemenceau and La Fayette over the next decade.
French Stoof-with-a-roof (the date is wrong , but it doesn't matter)
